


The Children of a Very Famous Man

by el_frijole



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6981961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_frijole/pseuds/el_frijole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future, Jack and Bitty have twins who one day decide to ask about why there are a pair of figure skates and hockey skates hanging up in the garage. The answer they got wasn't the one they were expecting. <br/>Dex makes a quick appearance! and Shitty is mentioned once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Children of a Very Famous Man

For as long as Jack Laurant Zimmermann Jr. and Daisy Erica Zimmermann could remember, there had always been those two pairs of ice skates hanging up next to the garage doors. The twins had never thought to ask about where they had come from or why they were there, and in all reality, neither twin ever really even noticed the skates before. It wasn’t until their fathers decided to put a refrigerator just for drinks (“drinks take up too much space and I need that space for butter!” their pa had yelled) out in the garage that the two kids even actually looked at the skates. 

At first, the twins would just go out to the garage and grab a drink before returning to the house, but one day, when their dads’ friend (uncle Dex, they called him) had come over to fix the lawnmower the twins discovered that the sunlight coming in through the open garage doors shown perfectly on the two pairs of skates. 

“Hey, Junior, you ever notice these skates before?” Daisy whispered to her brother as he closed the fridge after grabbing a gatorade. 

“Huh? No, well maybe, yeah. I think I’ve like, seen them before, but never paid much mind to them.” 

Daisy nodded along with what her brother said. She, too, had noticed the skates before, but never put much thought into them. Like everything else in the garage, it belonged to their dads and in the past. 

“Ok, but like, isn’t this pair figure skating skates? And this other pair hockey skates?” Daisy asked as she tentatively poked the smaller of the pairs.

“I don’t know, Daisy, do I look like I care about what types of old ice skates are hanging in our garage?”

“No, but don’t you think it’s weird?”

“No.”

“Come on, Junior. Think about it. Have we ever really heard about our dads’ pasts?”

“They met in college when dad was a junior and pa was a freshman. They married and moved to Georgia. What else do we need to know?” 

Daisy blocked Junior from heading back inside the house. She glanced over at her dad and uncle Dex, both too absorbed in the lawnmower to notice their conversation. 

“I wanna ask them about the skates. I wanna learn more about who they were.” 

“Oh, my God, Daisy why does it matter?!” 

“You are such a typical teenager, only caring about yourself.”

“Why do you even need me to ask them? Just ask them yourself.” 

“I don’t want to ask them by myself. Besides, I think it’s important for you to know about dad and pa’s past, too.” 

“...Fine. We’ll ask when uncle Dex leaves, fair?” 

“Fair.” Daisy smiled smugly, knowing she got her way as she exchanged a fist bump with her brother; their equivalent of a pinky promise. 

That night at dinner, Daisy kicked her brother under the table. He glared at her and she smiled and slightly nodded her head at their dad and pa. She was signalling to him that it was time to ask. Their uncle Dex had left just before dinner, so now was the opportunity Daisy had been waiting all day for and she couldn’t wait another minute. 

“Dad, pa. We have something we’d like to ask you.” Daisy said and her brother glared at her more. 

Jack Laurant Zimmermann Sr. and Eric Richard Bittle-Zimmermann exchanged a worried glance. When the twins had something they’d ‘like to ask’, it usually came at great expense to the two fathers, financially, emotionally, or both. 

“Sure, sweethearts, what’s up?” Eric asked. 

“We want to know why there are a pair of hockey skates and figure skating skates out in the garage. They’ve been there forever and we wanna know why.” Junior asked deadpanned. 

Daisy kicked him again under the table. She wanted to be the one to ask. 

“Oh!” Eric perked right up at the question. “Well now, I thought you kids would never ask! Oh, but you’ll have to ask your dad if it’s alright for me to tell you the story. We made a promise long ago and telling you this story would break it.” 

At this point, Junior’s interest had been caught, so it wasn’t surprising to see him eagerly turn to his dad like his sister had. 

“Please, dad?” They both asked simultaneously. 

“I guess you are old enough.” Jack smiled. 

“Alright, kids, you heard your dad. I will tell you the story after you clear the table.” 

The twins groaned, but quickly began to clear the table. 

When everything was clean, the twins met their dad and pa in the living room. The twins took seats between their dads and eagerly awaited their pa’s telling of the story. They don’t know what it was, but for for some reason they were finding themselves extremely excited for this story. It was probably about how their pa said telling it would break a promise to their dad. 

“So I’ll start first with things relating to you two. You are the children of a very famous man!” Eric said happily. 

“Yeah pa, we know. You run the best bakery in Georgia!”

“Well first off, I run the best bakery in the world, but no, I’m not talking about me.”

The twins were confused. They knew their pa ran a very successful bakery and was constantly in magazines and on T.V. They knew all sorts of celebrities had him bake cakes for their kids and things like that, but their dad always took them away if a camera or microphone was pointed in their direction. So, while they were aware of their pa’s fame, they were never actually bathed in the limelight of it. But now, suddenly, their pa was saying that he wasn’t the famous parent they had? 

“Are you talking about our birth father or something?” Junior asked. 

“He’s talking about me.” 

Both twins whipped their heads around to look at their dad with mouths agape and eyes wide with surprise. 

“Your dad was a very famous man, you know, but when you kids were born we made a promise.” 

“More like a deal.” Jack grinned at Eric. 

“Do not interrupt my story to chirp me, Jack Zimmermann.” Eric threatened with a small smile. “Anyways, when you were born and we adopted you, I wanted to name you Jack Laurant Zimmermann Junior, but your dad wouldn’t let me unless I agreed to keep you two kids out of his spotlight.” 

“I didn’t want you kids growing up with the same pressures I did.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. So now not only are you famous, but grandpa is too?” Junior asked, shocked. 

“Jack Laurant Zimmermann Junior and Senior stop interrupting my story or so help me no more pies for a week!” 

Both Jacks immediately shut up and returned their attention to Eric. 

“As I was saying, it was a promise. You got named after your dad like I wanted and I kept you two out of the spotlight like your dad wanted. We managed to keep you guys virtually invisible to the media and press for three years. It was hard, but we managed to do it. Three years after you were born, your dad retired and we were almost immediately left alone by the press so we moved to Georgia and raised you.

“Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to go back to when we first met. Jack, be a dear and go get some pie from the fridge. This will be a long story. Anyways, kids, as you know your dad and I met in college. We both went to Samwell up near Boston, but the only reason I could go there was because I got a hockey scholarship.” 

“Whoa pa, you played hockey? But you’re pretty small.” 

“Hush, Junior. I’m perfectly sized, right, honey?” 

“Yes.” 

“Come on, dad you don’t even know what you just said yes to!” Daisy yelled at her dad when he walked in with pie for everyone. 

Jack smiled and placed the pie down before sitting again. 

“I was a figure skater, had been my whole childhood. It was something I was good at. I was quick and light which made me perfect for the sport. So when it came time to apply to colleges, I sent out a video of me figure skating with my applications to be considered for scholarships. Now, I did play some hockey, but all no contact, so when I was accepted into Samwell University on a full hockey scholarship I was as surprised as a horse in a snake pit!”

Eric Richard Bittle-Zimmermann in true southern belle nature continued to recount the entire events of his first two years at college, and even accompanied his story with old vlog videos he dug up on YouTube. He also allotted time for Jack to explain his childhood in the limelight and the pressures of living up to his father’s legacy, and he even told them about his overdose (Eric brought out the tissues at that part). 

“So at the end of my sophomore year, your dad signed with the NHL. After I graduated I moved to Providence to live with him. We married two years after I graduated college, when I was 24, and then the next year we had a very special opportunity to adopt twins and we jumped at the chance since we weren’t sure how long it would have been for another opportunity like that to present itself to us. We kept you out of the media and press for three years until your dad’s contract was up when he was 33. Then we moved down to my home state and we raised you two out of the limelight. As for your question about why the two pairs of skates are hanging in the garage, well the answer is simple. Your father and I traded our skates for parenthood, but we didn’t have it in us to pack them away or throw them out, so we put them where we could see them whenever we wanted to.”

The twins didn’t know how to handle all this information. Both of them had taken out their phones and immediately googled their dad when their pa finished his long story and sure enough, it was all true. They couldn’t believe their nerdy, history teacher dad was a hockey legend, and what’s more, they couldn’t believe they didn’t realize it sooner. All the hockey paraphernalia their dad had around the house suddenly made sense to the twins. The random people on the street who would point and whisper when they saw him walking down the street, and the ring their dad wears every day without fail, the one that isn’t his wedding ring, all suddenly made sense. 

“We’re idiots.” The twins said in unison and their fathers laughed. 

That night, when the kids had retreated to their rooms and it was only Jack and Bitty left downstairs they snuggled close together on the couch, happy and feeling lighter than ever. Although they hadn’t been telling a lie to their children these past 17 years, they still felt a lot better after telling the kids about their past. 

“I thought they’d never catch on.” Bitty giggled as he sat on Jack’s lap in his oversized Zimmermann hockey jersey. 

“Kids never pay attention to their parents’ lives. Did you when you were their age?” Jack asked a dozing off Bitty.

“I guess not.” Bitty said with a yawn. 

Before Bitty could fall asleep on Jack’s lap, his phone buzzed. He curiously picked it up and saw he had a text from Daisy. 

“It’s from Daisy.” He said surprised. 

“What does she want?” Jack asked. 

Bitty unlocked his phone and read the message while laughing.

‘By the way,’ the text read. ‘We wanna meet this ‘Shitty’ person ASAP’

**Author's Note:**

> So Jack is 47 in this fic and Bitty is 42. The kids are 17. Jack joins the NHL at 25, adopts the kids at 30 and then retires at 33 and moves with Bitty and the kids to Georgia.


End file.
